Alaska brief history


Alaska brief history Alaska has been inhabited for longer than anywhere else in the Americas

Alaska has been inhabited for longer than anywhere else in the Americas; it was here, across the broad plains of the "land bridge" that is now submerged below the Bering Sea, that humans first reached the "New World," most likely around 14,000 years ago. These first settlers can be classified into four groups, which lived within well-defined regions until whites arrived. The Aleut, in the inhospitable Aleutian Islands, built underground homes and hunted sea mammals such as walrus for food and clothing, while the nomadic Athabascan herded caribou in the Interior. The warrior Tlingit lived in the warmer coastal regions of the southeast, where food was plentiful, in contrast to the Eskimos (or, more correctly, Yupik and Inupiat), who inhabited the northwestern coast, living off fish and larger marine life. Descendants of all these groups remain in Alaska today; a few live in much the same way as their ancestors, though most have been integrated into the modern American way through conquest, rape, marriage and religion.

In 1741, Danish explorer Vitus Bering , working for the Tsar of Russia, became the first Caucasian to set foot on Alaskan soil and found huge numbers of fur seals and sea otters - whose treasured pelts were made into hats. Russians, and later Britons and Spaniards, joined in the ensuing slaughter, both of the otters and the Aleut, who were enslaved and forced to hunt on behalf of the fur traders. By 1799 the Russians had established their Alaskan capital at present-day Sitka, pushed down the coast as far as northern California and, in the process, decimated the sea otter colonies.

During the 1860s, limited returns and domestic economic problems forced Russia to sell its lands to America.

On October 18, 1867, Secretary of State William Seward purchased what was disparagingly known as “Seward’s Folly " or "Seward's Icebox" for $7.2 million - less than 2¢ per acre. Alaska soon turned out to be a literal gold mine with major discoveries at Juneau (1880), Nome (1898), and Fairbanks (1902). With logging companies and commercial fishing operations also descending upon Alaska, the government began to take a more active interest in its affairs and in 1959 Alaska became the 49th state.

Alaska's next boom followed the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean, and fortune-seekers headed to Alaska in the mid-1970s to build the trans-Alaska pipeline. Today, Alaska still derives about eighty percent of its wealth from oil and gas; indeed, each resident receives an annual dividend check of almost $2000. But the state is still in economic transition and continues to be prone to extreme boom-and-bust cycles. Once lucrative fishing and lumber industries are fast giving way to tourism as a source of income, and the ethical question of how best to use Alaskan lands in the future has led to bitter controversy, not least over the oil reserves under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Mendenhall Glacier
and Tracy Arm Fjord

Ketchikan
The Town
Arrival and info
Restaurants

Sitka
The Town
Travel info
Restaurants

Skagway
The Town
Travel info
Restaurants

Exploring Skagway
Chilkoot Trail
Wrangell